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Thursday, January 29, 2009

1989: Excerpts From The Tipi Journal

"I did a nighthike to the lodge and here comes another wintry day as I sit with a light patter of snow falling on the tipi skins. I am back in the fold of the lodge as I walked up the muddy trail with bow and quiver in hand and a full pack on my back, looking for a piece of Fastex buckle lost on the treadway yesterday. It was ripped off the pack by the brush. It is warm up here and I finished plugging up the rust holes in my stove with a black tar-like substance, aluminum foil and a 3 foot sheet of thin tin."

"The woodstove now hums but the wet icey wood necessitates the use of kerosene poured on newspaper, a sure fire starter. Now it hums and I wonder how long the thing would burn if I left it to go down and get some gear. Two hours? I went down and erected a trail pole with tibetan ribbons and then went to gear up and carry more heavy stuff. This lodge is getting full, there's enough clothing for 3 bums but never enough candles. A dog got my 5 lb peanut butter jug, I found it empty and torn 100 yards from the tipi and also a large quart container of honey is now history, it sat ripped but much closer to the lodge--3 feet."

DAYS OF APRIL"It is spring on the Beaverdam ridge. Before it all started, the rains I mean, and when the shoes and pants were once dry, we would crouch on feeble haunches filling water jugs by the open spring pipe below the ridge and sometimes that hole dried up but it was okay. And then, the two box turtles would walk down the trail, one maimed, and would wonder what all the ruckus was about. It is later evening after recoverng, reskinning, replastering and reshelling the outside of the lodge using the 3 blue tarps I got many months ago."